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So, after much discussion with Cam, I eventually realised I had vastly misunderstood his base issue with most anime. Asides from things like tropes and genre etc, the main problem is certain specific kinds of sharp vocal sounds, which affect him on an almost physical level, and just happen to be especially common in anime, especially the sort with lots of over the top shenanigans and exaggerated expressions. Since I am not sensitive to that sort of sound I am not likely to notice if it happens, and even dubs might do it too, so we decided he really is better off just avoiding anime unless something seems so appealing he's willing to risk some discomfort.

But! Discussing what he likes tropewise that I've seen in East Asian live action (since he hasn't explored it much) got me to rec my favourite romance kdrama, Coffee Prince, and while Cam thought that sounded a bit too mundane for his tastes looking up the show and actors led him to watch the trailer for Goblin, a kdrama I had never heard of. And based on the first episode he LOVES IT.

Me: It sounds like it might have a tragic ending, that's pretty common in kdramas and one reason I don't watch many.
Cam: Oh I am SURE it's going to be tragic in the BEST WAY, it's about an angsty immortal who wants to die :D :D
Me: Ha ok we really do like different things. Have fun :)

So! Have a (qualified) rec from Cam.



(Note: This is NOT the gay Chinese Guardian, it's a het kdrama)

He also really loved the scifi kdrama Moving, which apparently has some really sweet romance along with badass superhero action.



So while my attempt to find him anime he liked didn't succeed at that, it did help him find a show, and hopefully someone else reading found an anime they might like.

And yes I have now recced him Hotel Del Luna, since I know that's another highly regarded kdrama about an immortal, and he said the gender dynamics with a female immortal/male mortal look fun. I poked skygiants kdrama tag and she DID review Goblin I just forgot about it, oops. But I also found Tale of the Nine Tailed which looked promising, in terms of modern day fantasy about angsty immortals.

I am suuuuper tired today.

Recently:

Despicable Me 2: An ok sequel, barrelled along at an entertaining pace and was mostly sweet and funny but had some unfortunate subtext about gender and race (and a plot point which was weirdly reminiscent of a bad dream I had the night before the movie, but I GUESS I can't blame them for that)

Currently:

"Haunted" by Kelley Armstrong
Another "Women of the Otherworld" book. The romance aspects are kind of understated and meh but as a story of a somewhat amoral but kickass woman not letting death get between her and her goals it's pretty fun. I have a prediction about the villain based on tired romance novel tropes LET'S SEE IF I'M RIGHT.

Am currently listening to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast, which is disturbing and funny and oddly sweet, like a radio station set in a modern US version of Fallen London.

Orphan Black: Got Cam to spoil me for anything that might freak me out, am finding it less tense and thus more watchable but still slow going. It is good! It just isn't GRABBING me.

Dalja's Spring: Kdrama about a 33 year old woman who drunkenly hires a 27 year old guy to pretend to be her boyfriend to spite an ex, increasingly dramatic shenanigans ensue. The romance feels more like a cute friendship to me but it's pretty sweet and enjoyable, though a moustache twirling antagonist has shown up who feels a bit out of place. Also she keeps going on about how OLD 33 is, IT'S NOT THAT OLD.

I tried playing Undertale, a cute RPG by Toby "Radiation" Fox, one of the key music/gaming people involved with Homestuck, but it (a)has set save points and (b)closes without asking if you want to quit when you press 'escape" (eg the "menu" button on 99% of the other games I play) Which added up to me deciding it was all too much effort.

GIP: new icon of turtles all the way down, from this photo.

Lately I've been feeling...I guess mildly depressed is the word for it. Not sad exactly, just that whenever I ask myself if I have the motivation to do stuff my brain keeps saying "nope it will make you feel bad and you will screw it up" so I don't. Like an ache you only notice when you try to move. And of course then I feel sad about not getting anything done, luckily I've been able to find enough things I can do to keep the wheels of life turning and have a sense of accomplishment.

In that vein...

Have been playing through the Fade VERY SLOWLY in DAO. It is generally considered the most boring part of the game and most people skip it on replays, but it's the first time I've tried it without cheats so I am determined to see if I can do it (signs point to yes!) It is pretty dull though, no dialogue or other characters just...fighting and wandering around.

Started watching All About My Romance, alas my brain is a bit sick of having to read subtitles. I tried a bunch of other Hulu shows the only other one to grab me at all so far is "Little Mosque" but it's not the kind of show I can watch a bunch of in a row.

I found myself feeling SUDDENLY SAD about not going to Continuum, and I do think I let inertia make me dismiss the idea of going too quickly, but mainly I think I just feel lonely AND socially awkward which makes me crave large groups of friendly people I can lurk around awkwardly. Not sure how to acquire such a thing in Perth right now :/

flamebyrd did you notice this hexel picture I reblogged? She's been doing some nice art with Hexel, still haven't experimented with it myself.

Adorable physics romance between an electron and a positron

Gratuitous picture of myself and the socks I bought.

A little video about cosplay some people might enjoy

No hugs or equivalent please I'm not in that sort of mood.

It's all a blur of adorableness and baristas. And I really enjoyed it! VERY much a het romance, not even the token gay character of Victor Victoria, and while there were lots of well drawn non romantic relationships and humour the core of the story (and a fair few of the side stories) is romance. But if you like romance it had oodles of delicious yearning and affection and adorableness and smooches and believably happy endings. There's a few plot holes and it wallows in tropes, I'm not sure how much of my love is a result of being an absolute sucker for 12th Night style plots (though not one woman expresses attraction to her a a guy! Not one! WHAT KIND OF CROSSDRESSING ROMANCE IS THIS).

There's a lot of sexism and heteronormativity, it felt like a relatively progressive story from a heteronormative culture(*) eg the idea of being gay causes MASSIVE angst (though how much people care varies a lot to suit the plot), lots of sketchy behaviour is considered totally normal/romantic etc (I was warned that men in Korean dramas grab women's wrists all the time and they really do omg), but there's a fair few really great and complex female characters and there is a heavy emphasis on the importance of men not trying too hard to control their female partners. It's sympathetic to all it's characters and takes all their relationships seriously. Even the other female corner of the love quadrangle, a workaholic artist who cheated on and dumped her long suffering boyfriend, is three dimensional and sympathetic.

Aside from men physically pushing around women more than I like, there some medical things some people may find upsetting, and I've seen warnings for the toilet humour/body fluid stuff though it didn't seem so bad to me.

So if the love story of an androgynous female taekwondo instructor who crossdresses to get a job at a coffee shop and gets into shenanigans with her lego-loving jerk-with-a-heart-of-gold boss sounds appealing, go watch it :) Also since Cam didn't realise from my last post: it's live action! See how pretty the cast is.

The US ads were surreal. Products I've never heard of! Prescription MS meds! Good moms keeping a fridge full of little bottles of water for their kids!

Also, the fact that I knew NO KOREAN AT ALL going in made me realise how much more of a feel for Japanese I've picked up from anime etc. Even by the end I was having trouble distinguishing which sequence of sounds was the name I could see right on the screen.

(*)I can't tell if it's more heteronormative than the romances I'm used to, or just differently so.